I like Newegg. I find them to be reliable and cheap. I used them all the time when I lived in AZ. Unfortunately, I moved to CA. Since they are based in CA, I have to pay sales tax, negating some of their price advantages. Any recommendations for good, reliable computer retailers that are not based in CA?
How about if you take a DVD and a VHS and scrape both of the pavement, which one will still work. The VHS tape, making it the obvious choice for durability.
Not so obvious. VHS tapes can break if dropped, while a DVD can withstand a few drops (though not scraping). VHS tapes can be broken in normal usage (by getting the tape stuck in the deck). Doesn't happen with DVD.
When I rent I always rent VHS, because the worst that is wrong with them is either a couple scan lines or someone forgot to rewind them.
I've rented VHS tapes that have tracking problems so bad, they are unwatchable. I've been a Netflix subscriber for 4 years. Only 2 DVD had to be returned because of unplayability.
Newer homes never have them, but the older house that I bought (built in 1979)
I still find it funny the standards that Arizonans use to call a building "old." My old was was considered "old" even though it was built in 1991. I now live in California, in a 50 year old house.
You might argue, "the games won't sell as well if they don't look good," but look at the PS2. No HD support, clearly inferior graphics, but due to some great games and some clever developers, it's dominating the market.
It's dominating the market because of inertia. If the Xbox and PS2 were not in existence until tomorrow, when both got released at the same time, PS2 may still win, but Xbox would easily win among HDTV converts. (On various home theater message board I'm on, hardly anyone uses PS2. They all use XBox because of better graphics.)
As HDTV gets more and more penetration in the market, the new Nintendo is more and more at a disadvantage.
I used to have a pretty crappy laptop at work. 600 MHz Intel processor, about 30 minutes battery life. It really sucked. My company replaced it with a new one. 1.7 GHz Centrino. 4+ hour battery life. It's really nice. But it's still not ready to replace the desktop. The biggest drawback is still I/O performance. When I rip a CD with my laptop, it slows down the entire computer. It's annoying as hell. The computer itself actually compresses into MP3 faster than my 3.2 GHz desktop. But while it's extracting, the encoding is SLLLLLOOOOOOWWW and everything on the computer is slow. And it's not just the internal stuff that's slow. I have an external hard drive (Maxtor 7200 RPM). It seems a lot slower on the laptop than on my desktop (when importing music into iTunes, for example).
Here's a pet peeve I have with respect to price discrimination. FedEx. FedEx has different tiers of service. Yet it seems that (with the exception of FedEx Ground, which is a different system), the only differentiation between the services is how long the item spends in the warehouse. I once bought a product on a Monday, but I only paid for the super saver delivery. You track the package online and you'll see that the package is picked up by FedEx on Monday, shipped to Memphis that night, and flown to Oakland by Tuesday. Then it sits there until Friday, when it is delivered--on the same trucks that are delivering the overnight packages sent on Thursday night. (Sometimes it spends extra time in Memphis instead of the local delivery area).
What do you notice? The long delivery, the one that takes the most time and costs the least, actually requires more work from FedEx's end than overnight delivery (because they have to store the item in a warehouse).
I'll be honest, I don't really care if an LCD monitor costs me an extra $100 if it does what I want and I can get it when I want it.
That's totally different. I am also willing to pay an extra $100 to get a "better" monitor. But the post you replied to talks about paying an extra $100 to get the exact same monitor.
Same goes for people doing video editing: your audience is largely represented by people viewing CRTs. Don't you want to see what they will see?Computer monitors are not appropriate for video editing period, no matter if they are LCD or CRT. They are fine for the editing portion. But if you want to preview what your clients see, any videographer worth his fee will use an NTSC monitor (basically a high-res TV).
From my own experience, once you count the fingers and toes, all you'll care about is the happiness part.Scratch the first part. I know a 4 year old born with 12 fingers and 11 toes. Otherwise perfectly healthy.
If all else fails, I play the cd in a standard cd player, while recording it on my computer. I break apart the tracks later, and have the music in whatever format I want.
Yeah, YOU might do that. But it's so much trouble to do that, it may convince a few others to just buy a copy instead. The reason CDs are being copied now is that it is trivially easy to do so--press a few button, and you have a perfect copy in under 10 minutes. If you had to play it in real time, then break apart the.WAV using a.WAV editor, a lot fewer people would do it.
Ease of use is a huge issue though. Yeah, you can copy via the analog inputs of your sound card, but that is done real-time, you have to watch the levels and is annoying as hell. You can rip a CD digitally in 5 minutes. Much easier. And much more likely to be done.
I treated that level as a "run to the next rock then blast the 4 antlions chasing you" level instead of a jumping level. I tried it as a jumping level, and hated it.
Re:Ahh.. jumping puzzles...
on
A Gamer's Manifesto
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· Score: 3, Informative
If you never finished Half Life, you don't understand the complaint: after finishing a bunch of levels of the "Greatest FPS Ever" you get to a level that is merely a jumping puzzle where you have to jump from one thing to another. You'd swear you were transported to a Mario game. Half-Life 2 doesn't have that flaw. There is a tiny jumping part, but it is trivially easy, unlike HL 1, which was surprisingly hard.
I'll post what everyone else here has done: Backup the data! Right now, 80% of my collection is on two different hard drives. (The other 20% doesn't fit on one of the hard drives so is only on one hard drive). In the near future (next week), I'll be buying another hard drive and another one after that. Giving me 3 full copies plus 1 partial copy. Then, I'll keep copying it to the medium of choice as new technologies become available. In 30 years, it'll take about 3 seconds to copy an entire 40 GB iPod, so there'll be no reason not to transfer the info to the latest and greatest hard drive techonolgy (or whatever the replacement for the hard drive is).
One reason why music can't be compared to 5.25" floppys is because the information is more important to me. I had a bunch of 5.25" floppys that I ended up throwing away years ago. But I didn't care about the information. (I didn't even know what was on most of the floppys). I care enough about my music to make sure that it gets copied regularly.
Plus, my bet is that we are much more likely to see CD players 40 years from now than you think. Reason: backwards compatibility. Since there is so much info on 4.75" optical discs, it is foolish not to include the capability to read them, even as the storage changes. That's why DVD players play CDs and HD-DVD players will play DVDs and CDs. Just too much information, readily accessible and capable of fast and easy duplication (unlike 12" albums and cassette tapes) for the industries to junk them entirely, for probably at least 20 years. The next 20 years after that, you'll be able to find players (just like you can still find turntables that play 12" LPs.
I should have just Googled before I posted. It was actually the 486 that had this "feature". The 486DX was the first Intel '86 CPU with an integrated floating point processor. The 486SX is the crippled version. The 487SX was merely the 486DX that also disabled the 486SX. See this page.
Didn't Intel do something like this? I forget the exact model number, but they used to sell a crippled version of the 386 with the co-processor disabled. If you wanted to buy the math co-processor, you bought a 387. But, in reality, all the 387 was is a 386 that disabled a crippled 386. (It might not have been the 386, it could have been the 286).
Re:Just bought a new MX1000 to replace an MX700
on
Top Mice Compared
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· Score: 1
My MX1000 middle clicks fine in Firefox. Just set the Logitech driver to middle click and it works.
If it hits $100 million domestic before Memorial Day
"If" it hits $100 million before Memorial Day? It's 100% likely to break $100 million before the end of the day on Sunday, May 22--one week before Memorial Day.
I'd be VERY surprised if it hasn't broken $200 Million by Memorial Day.
I don't care if Blu-ray or HD-DVD wins. They both suck, and compared to modern HDDs, the proponents of each may as well try to reintroduce the 3.5" floppy for all the difference it would make.
What the hell are you talking about? HD-DVD isn't intended to replace the hard drive. It's intended to replace the DVD.
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I like Newegg. I find them to be reliable and cheap. I used them all the time when I lived in AZ. Unfortunately, I moved to CA. Since they are based in CA, I have to pay sales tax, negating some of their price advantages. Any recommendations for good, reliable computer retailers that are not based in CA?
Not so obvious. VHS tapes can break if dropped, while a DVD can withstand a few drops (though not scraping). VHS tapes can be broken in normal usage (by getting the tape stuck in the deck). Doesn't happen with DVD.
When I rent I always rent VHS, because the worst that is wrong with them is either a couple scan lines or someone forgot to rewind them.
I've rented VHS tapes that have tracking problems so bad, they are unwatchable. I've been a Netflix subscriber for 4 years. Only 2 DVD had to be returned because of unplayability.
I still find it funny the standards that Arizonans use to call a building "old." My old was was considered "old" even though it was built in 1991. I now live in California, in a 50 year old house.
It's dominating the market because of inertia. If the Xbox and PS2 were not in existence until tomorrow, when both got released at the same time, PS2 may still win, but Xbox would easily win among HDTV converts. (On various home theater message board I'm on, hardly anyone uses PS2. They all use XBox because of better graphics.)
As HDTV gets more and more penetration in the market, the new Nintendo is more and more at a disadvantage.
A person who can't tell the difference between VHS and DVD is not the target market for HD.
Obviously, you've never seen HD.
I used to have a pretty crappy laptop at work. 600 MHz Intel processor, about 30 minutes battery life. It really sucked. My company replaced it with a new one. 1.7 GHz Centrino. 4+ hour battery life. It's really nice. But it's still not ready to replace the desktop. The biggest drawback is still I/O performance. When I rip a CD with my laptop, it slows down the entire computer. It's annoying as hell. The computer itself actually compresses into MP3 faster than my 3.2 GHz desktop. But while it's extracting, the encoding is SLLLLLOOOOOOWWW and everything on the computer is slow. And it's not just the internal stuff that's slow. I have an external hard drive (Maxtor 7200 RPM). It seems a lot slower on the laptop than on my desktop (when importing music into iTunes, for example).
The people who brought the lawsuit are not.
What do you notice? The long delivery, the one that takes the most time and costs the least, actually requires more work from FedEx's end than overnight delivery (because they have to store the item in a warehouse).
That's totally different. I am also willing to pay an extra $100 to get a "better" monitor. But the post you replied to talks about paying an extra $100 to get the exact same monitor.
Same goes for people doing video editing: your audience is largely represented by people viewing CRTs. Don't you want to see what they will see?Computer monitors are not appropriate for video editing period, no matter if they are LCD or CRT. They are fine for the editing portion. But if you want to preview what your clients see, any videographer worth his fee will use an NTSC monitor (basically a high-res TV).
If he was really as smart as people think, he would have invented Velcro.
From my own experience, once you count the fingers and toes, all you'll care about is the happiness part.Scratch the first part. I know a 4 year old born with 12 fingers and 11 toes. Otherwise perfectly healthy.
Yeah, YOU might do that. But it's so much trouble to do that, it may convince a few others to just buy a copy instead. The reason CDs are being copied now is that it is trivially easy to do so--press a few button, and you have a perfect copy in under 10 minutes. If you had to play it in real time, then break apart the .WAV using a .WAV editor, a lot fewer people would do it.
Ease of use is a huge issue though. Yeah, you can copy via the analog inputs of your sound card, but that is done real-time, you have to watch the levels and is annoying as hell. You can rip a CD digitally in 5 minutes. Much easier. And much more likely to be done.
I treated that level as a "run to the next rock then blast the 4 antlions chasing you" level instead of a jumping level. I tried it as a jumping level, and hated it.
If you never finished Half Life, you don't understand the complaint: after finishing a bunch of levels of the "Greatest FPS Ever" you get to a level that is merely a jumping puzzle where you have to jump from one thing to another. You'd swear you were transported to a Mario game. Half-Life 2 doesn't have that flaw. There is a tiny jumping part, but it is trivially easy, unlike HL 1, which was surprisingly hard.
Throwing a disk in the trash to get it to eject seemed to confuse a lot of people, also.
One reason why music can't be compared to 5.25" floppys is because the information is more important to me. I had a bunch of 5.25" floppys that I ended up throwing away years ago. But I didn't care about the information. (I didn't even know what was on most of the floppys). I care enough about my music to make sure that it gets copied regularly.
Plus, my bet is that we are much more likely to see CD players 40 years from now than you think. Reason: backwards compatibility. Since there is so much info on 4.75" optical discs, it is foolish not to include the capability to read them, even as the storage changes. That's why DVD players play CDs and HD-DVD players will play DVDs and CDs. Just too much information, readily accessible and capable of fast and easy duplication (unlike 12" albums and cassette tapes) for the industries to junk them entirely, for probably at least 20 years. The next 20 years after that, you'll be able to find players (just like you can still find turntables that play 12" LPs.
I should have just Googled before I posted. It was actually the 486 that had this "feature". The 486DX was the first Intel '86 CPU with an integrated floating point processor. The 486SX is the crippled version. The 487SX was merely the 486DX that also disabled the 486SX. See this page.
Didn't Intel do something like this? I forget the exact model number, but they used to sell a crippled version of the 386 with the co-processor disabled. If you wanted to buy the math co-processor, you bought a 387. But, in reality, all the 387 was is a 386 that disabled a crippled 386. (It might not have been the 386, it could have been the 286).
My MX1000 middle clicks fine in Firefox. Just set the Logitech driver to middle click and it works.
"If" it hits $100 million before Memorial Day? It's 100% likely to break $100 million before the end of the day on Sunday, May 22--one week before Memorial Day.
I'd be VERY surprised if it hasn't broken $200 Million by Memorial Day.
What the hell are you talking about? HD-DVD isn't intended to replace the hard drive. It's intended to replace the DVD.